So, Where Was I?

Hanging Upside Down

I know. I know. It’s winter time and I should post a photo of pine trees and snow. What am I thinking?

Well, what I’m thinking is that this is the 3rd winter in my new life and what I want to write about is how important it is to sometimes turn your life upside down to start over. Three years ago, I did just that. Hanging there, upside down, makes everything look different, that’s for sure. Turns out, though, it’s not a bad difference at all.

So, long…long…long story short – Retire, Divorce, Move, Lose Weight, Become a Grandma. There’s more but that’s the gist of it. All in three years. And, I am here to smile about it because three years ago, I was carrying around weight; physically, mentally, emotionally, and materialistically. Now, I carry only the things I choose to carry and believe me, it all weighs so much less.

I let go of marriage. I do not need to be with someone to be complete. Well, I do have a cat! I let go of home ownership. Do you know that you can just call the office if your toilet overflows and they send someone to clear the clog AND clean up the floor? I let go of alcohol. I was kidding myself about how much I was drinking. I was telling myself that I had no problem with it. I lied!

Then I started taking photos of the animals out my back door. Cardinals, squirrels, chipmunks and DEER! Amazing photos through that protective glass door. And then I started reading, and writing. Animal Speaks by Ted Andrews and Animal Spirit Guides by Steven Farmer. I didn’t know that there was a way to connect in this way. The messages that I read; first of the cardinal, then the squirrels, then chipmunk, then finally that deer helped me gain the courage to actually walk out that glass door and into the woods.

In the woods, I learned to breathe again. It’s in the woods that I see other symbols of messages, whether they are sent to me or I am just thinking them up as I go, they work to calm my spirit. Paths are logically symbolic of all the different choices a person has in life; that one was easy. Then, I found myself looking at trees and seeing the knots and scars of hard lives. Yet they still reach up towards the light. I see a pond full of cluttered green mossy bloom and still see that lily push right on through all of it. I see turtles just going with the flow, and birds singing out happy tunes and flowers blooming any way they want to.